Forth by our good desires we go
Our dear, approaching, Lord, to meet
Or wait, his secret will to know,
And in the house expecting sit;
With forward zeal, like Martha, run,
To Jesus of our loss complain;
Or calmly sad, like Mary, moan,
Till He returns, and ends our pain.
Forth by our good desires we go
Hymnal/Album: Originally titled: “‘Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat still in the house.’—[John 11,] v. 20." This hymn appears in the 1763-64 manuscript “MS John.” This manuscript is part of the collection of the Methodist Archive and Research Centre in The John Rylands Library, The University of Manchester (accession number MA 1977/573, Charles Wesley Notebooks Box 3). Accessed through the website of The Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, Duke Divinity School. Published in The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, Collected and Arranged by G. Osborn, Vol. 11 (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1871), page 472.
Publishing: Public Domain